The Mexico-izing of America

No, this isn't an immigration post and it's certainly not a racism post. Rather it's a reference to the situation in Texas where prosecutors seemingly are being targeted both as reprisals for prosecutions and as a terror tactic to accomplish several things: 1) to eliminate tough prosecutors, 2) to discourage anyone from becoming a prosecutor, and 3) to establish that the bad guys are in ultimate control

We've seen this happen in Mexico, where a combination of targeted murders and threats to law officer and prosecutor families have become pretty effective in terms of corrupting officials and establishing the authority of drug gangs over various jurisdictions.

I wonder if that's what's happening here and I wonder if anything can effectively put a stop to it.

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So, you're a cop and some dude pulls you aside and shows a criminal colleague of his standing near nearby your wife and child with a "we know how to reach you" look on his face. It's either live in mortal fear for your family or do them a small favor, plus there's some cash they want you to take. Actually, they make you take it. That's how it starts.

Sure this thing has gone one from time to time here, but I wonder. Now, with the drug gangs moving to the north, whether it's going to become as epidemic as it is south of the border. You're not really providing me with much hope, Belle.

The 'war on drugs' is an abject failure that costs millions in incarcerating the poor, millions more in fighting a free market, and only ends up empowering organized crime by creating very precious contraband for them to trade.

The only way to end the drug cartels is to legalize drugs. Interestingly that will also reduce the illegal trade of guns which will have the effect of fewer people perceiving the need to legally own guns. Perhaps then, and only then, will everyone do an heroic hit of DMT, experience ego death, and come together in a truly advanced form of civilization.

But the government in any realistic scenario will always make drugs illegal to market to some segment of the population. Let's start with people who can't get a prescription for hydrocodone, to take just one of many such examples. And then it will always be illegal to market drugs to minors.

And the gangs will just then move into other areas, such as kidnapping minors to be used as prostitutes. Should we legalize that as well?

Won't they just move into other areas of crime? Armed robbery, hijacking trailer trucks full of valuable cargo, cybercrime, etc.?

Giving them a valuable category of contraband gives them immense revenues - and those revenues are sought with great violence. Legalizing the drugs eliminates that category of contraband and zaps that source of revenue. They already do kidnap minors to be used as sex slaves - but minors must be fed, groomed, and are a lot harder to transport than a kilo of coke (not to mention worth less). The problem with anti-drug laws is that drugs are so compact and carry so much value.

You don't have to make every drug available for recreational use - but you do need to keep a wide enough supply available to keep people from gravitating towards home distillations/concoctions. Of the billions saved off the 'war on drugs', you do have to spend a significant fraction on health care for the resulting junkies - but then you can keep the billions you save on prisons.

Drug addiction needs to be treated as an illness, not a crime - and doing so also curbs the spread of HIV/Hep C. Drug dealing needs to be treated as an issue for the tax collectors.

This has nothing to do with Mexican gangs, border incursions, immigration reform, or drug smuggling. This has to do with a violent white supremacist group - The Aryan Brotherhood, trying to gain revenge for a number of their members being arrested, prosecuted and jailed in recent years in the southwest.

Has anyone noticed that the NRA has been completely silent over this horrific crime? Why should they say anything? These good ‘ol boy white fellas are simply exercising their 2nd Amendment rights. Besides, they pay good money for those weapons, and the NRA isn’t about to do anything that will take so much as a dollar out of the profits of the death-dealing gun merchants.

Coincidentally, the NRA just announced their solution to the school shootings: arm the teachers. They don’t mention that the now-deceased D.A. and his wife were well-armed and well-trained; or that the AR-15, .223 Bushmaster used was the same as butchered those beautiful, helpless, little children at Sandy Hook. But the lives of little children and law enforcement officers is not a priority of the NRA; only the profits of the death merchants matter to them. They know that all they have to do is make these mass-murder weapons easily available and the criminals and crazy people will flock to buy them, thus lining the pockets of the manufacturers and dealers - good ol' American capitalism and market economics in all its glory.

As to what should be done: begin by completely closing the gun show loopholes, where these murderers most likely purchased their assault weapons.

2nd, begin to remove weapons designed only for shooting lots of little children and lightly-armed police officers from the streets. It will doubtless take years to make a big impact, but we must either start addressing this carnage - death and destruction on a scale experienced ONLY by the U.S. among civilized countries (if we dare call ourselves “civilized”) - right now, or it will only get worse.

Third, repeal all the dozen or so “stand your ground” laws in the states. These are nothing more than thinly-disguised licenses for white people to shoot down unarmed black people. The NRA has made it quite clear that they support George Zimmerman’s right to chase down an unarmed teenager and shoot him to death; after all, he’s black, isn’t he? Or as Sean Hannity says, “He was wearing a HOODIE!” What Sean really means but is too duplicitous to admit, he was Black!

Fourth: re-word the 2nd Amendment so that it is clear about what the founding fathers understood it to be, as detailed in the Articles of Confederation from which it was excerpted: an empowerment of the states to maintain “well-regulated” militias to confront invasions from governments, foreign and domestic; and to keep those weapons in armories where they could easily be accessed by legally-established citizen militias. Despite the specious claims of the NRA and gun nuts, the 2nd Amendment was never intended to make it easy for Americans to shoot each other down in our streets, schools, theaters, and homes. It was never intended to satiate the fantasies of immature boys/men who never outgrew the excitement of being two-gun cowboys.

There are about 100 million of us legal private gun owners in the U.S., we are tax paying law abiding citizens, not criminals who shoot children and politicians.

Please get your head out of whatever dark recess you have it in and come into the light. Of course that's just a suggestion.

Political killings, child kidnapping and prostitution occur all around the world, your answer is to attack the average citizen's right to self determination and self protection. In you mythical delusion all the BAD people will give up their BAD ways and become wonderful people overnight.

I know your intentions are good, Dale, and truth is, I agree with much of what you say, but let anyone start rewriting Constitutional Amendments, and watch how quickly they take "freedom of religion" to the chopping block.

When larger government organizations get involved, like the FBI, the local bad guys usually lose, and the problem goes away to a great extent.

Killing an officer brings scrutiny, as it should. The average local gangster will not have the capacity to handle coordinated raids by trained squads with night vision goggles. They will not be able to evade detection when voice recognition systems and targeting systems find them with their cell phones.

I am not making any case for whether night raids on personal property are what should happen, just that it does happen.

We haven't yet seen the hardcore gangs go about corrupting American officials the way they have done in Mexico, either by direct threats, bribes, or as a last resort threats to their families. We have yet to see how well that tactic works here on a large scale. I think American officials love their families just like Mexican officials, don't you?